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| On Sunshine City dori |
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| The Milky Way cafe, I'm sure you've seen their parfaits on tumblr with thousands of notes! |
Today I thought I would do a different type of set up for my Japan post, make it more of a recap of the day rather than focus on the individual tourist points during said day. Basically I thought that this would work better since I mostly just took photos of things I found cute while I walked to Sunshine City and within Sunshine City itself. By now this building is well known and is the main attraction in Ikebukuro, so I don't think I need to give it a write up again. It does have a lot of great things to do and see there as my pictures will illustrate!
Walking towards Sunshine City there are tons of shops, restaurants and arcades just as you would imagine in a shopping/sight seeing area. I always make a point to stop in the several arcades that face Sunshine City Dori (street), sometimes to play the games or take purikura but most often just to take photos of the cute prizes. I have gotten better at catching over the years so I fall prey to the UFO catchers more often than not haha. I also always stop at the Sanrio store, tho it's so dangerous to go in because everything is cute.
One thing I have noticed over the years of traveling to Japan is the increase in Maid culture in Ikebukuro. At one time you'd only see maids soliciting people in Akihabara, but during this most recent visit I saw several different maids and a butler. Maybe it's a good chance for people who missed the maid experience in Akiba to try it here.
The bulk of this day was spent at Sunshine city (and Nekorobi), taking photos. There are so many different sections in Sunshine City, with tons of great clothing, gift/toy, accesories stores. The Disney Store, Toys R Us, Swimmer, just to name a couple. Plus then there's Namja Town the food theme park, which I have never visited as I can't fully enjoy it haha. Check out the rest of the pics for all the cool stuff that caught my eye!
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| A cute shop selling cosmetics and circle lenses! |
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| This store was styled to look like an old fashion candy shop! |
This basically shows how I spend the bulk of my time in Japan, walking around and taking pictures of cute/interesting things haha. Hopefully everyone enjoys this post as much as I do, I really like seeing the cute things and merchandise in Japan because the aesthetic is much different than here. Well Japanese things are so widely available, and terms like Kawaii and Manga are entering mainstream lexicon. For me growing up in the early 2000s with my Japan obsession haha, I would have never guessed how widely spread the cultural artifacts would become! But still, I wish I could be back in Japan right now so I could take more pics/buy more cute things as I wander around!
